Lil' Blue

I am told that Big Blue is a car Roger's family had while he was growing up. Lil' Blue is our new bike! For those of you who speak Bike and Rider (Haha...like Car and Driver for the bike world...well, I thought it was funny!), Lil' Blue is a Raliegh Mojave 2.0. Basically he's a mountain bike for riding around town and on paved trails.

In my training for the Deseret News Marathon and then again this year for the Top of Utah Marathon (before I was banned from running for a month), I discovered that my knees hate running long distances. I have what is called Iliotibial Band Syndrome. The Iliotibial Band runs on the outside of your leg from your hip to your knee. In some very fortunate people, such as myself, running long distances causes the Iliotibial Band to become swollen at the knee causing a great deal of pain. Horray!

So I decided that my career as a marathoner just might be over. For me the syndrome seems to kick in when I hit about 12 miles on my long runs. So I may be more of a half marathon person...we'll see. I love 5K's and 10K's, so I'll definitely continue doing those. But in my training for marathons I also discovered that I love going long distances. This is where Lil' Blue comes in. With Lil' Blue I'll be able to go long distances without my knees acting up. That is the hope anyway.

Here's Lil' Blue tucked away in his new home. I'm too protective of him to let him stay outside where he'll get rained on, snowed on, and possibly stollen, so at least for now he's staying in our living room. Surprisingly it doesn't bother me to have him there, but it does bug Roger. What a strange turn of events considering in our house Rog is "mess" and I'm "clean."